Business success

Successful people follow successful people!

It’s funny how so many people are trying to find the answer to that question. “What does it take to become successful?”My path has led me to ask the very same question. The first thing that I needed to do, was make sure I was asking the right person. Which led me on my search for the answer. Not how to become, but who has become successful.

The first question that I needed to ask was NOT how to become successful, but “who” was I going to ask?

Then in walked Jim Britt!

Jim Britt has mentored several of today’s top name motivational speakers including being the man who gave a young Anthony Robbins his first real job and mentored him for the next five years.

Jim’s formal education stopped before graduating from high school. His career training began in a gas station earning $1.00 per hour and then on a factory floor making $1.67 per hour. His first attempt at entrepreneurial success he started at rock bottom with $9 in the bank and a borrowed $4,000. A year later he had lost it all…home, both vehicles, furniture, everything. But after that first year and a lot of tenacity the tables turned and shortly thereafter he had made his first million.

You can watch Jim Britt share his story here:

Over the years he has built a fortune worth millions of dollars with multiple streams of passive income from various business models.

Today, Jim presents seminars on personal achievement, entrepreneurship, small business success strategies, network marketing, leadership, and all aspects of peak performance and personal fulfillment. To date, he has addressed thousands of audiences around the world totaling well over 1,000,000 people from all walks of life.

So let me ask you a question … who are you following?

MICROminutes bring successful entrepreneurs to the show each week, so you can hear REAL stories from successful entrepreneurs. (find out more here)

Success is often scary.

There is no SUCCESS without change; there is no change without fear (or loss); and there is no loss without pain. Change requires making choices. It’s not enough to dream of changing. It’s not enough to desire change. In order for you to change, you will need to make a decision. You must choose to change. The battle starts in your mind, not in your behavior. The way you think determines the way you feel, and the way you feel determines the way you act. If you want to change the way you act, you start by changing the way you think. The way you think about success!

THREE things that say you’re ready for success:

Ready for change – You desire a real change in your business and are willing to put forth the effort.

Dedicated – Your business is unique, and you are open to exploring new ways of doing it.

Open-mind – You are open to discovering approaches and even mindset shifts that you haven’t known before.

Some of you are stuck in the middle, and you’re just going through doing business because you haven’t let go of the old patterns, the old habits, and the old ways of thinking. The secret to a successful business, is to change you . The secret is to know and face the truth. You must know and face the truth about yourself, your idea’s about success, and your own thinking.

You must change the way you think about success, and that will help change the way you act!

Nothing changes until you know and face the truth, and make the choice to change… and believe you can do it NOW! That’s how to have success in your business!

This just in, or what the industry like to say, “Breaking News!”

Scanning Facebook on my smart phone this morning revealed something very telling! What I was able to see was just one more reason that Facebook is bad for small businesses! If your planning to use Facebook for marketing your small business, then you better take time to read this.

Why is marketing on Facebook not good for small businesses? Because … you can’t afford it! Take a look at the screen capture above. What do you see? I see BIG business using Facebook’s sponsored ads to not only get traffic, but also to promote it’s daily news show! Did you catch that? The above pic shows that Channel 7 ABC News is using Facebook to sponsor daily shows. So why is that big news? You CAN’T afford to promote daily! And the news gets even worst.

“Fundamentally, Facebook cares about THEIR business, not about YOUR business.” Jay Bear

In a recent post here from Convince & Convert (4 Things You Can Do About Your Facebook Problem) Jay Bear breaks down what is happening to your marketing efforts on Facebook (I think his statements says it all) and that’s just the beginning. In February I remember reading about a FAILED Facebook ad campaign that ended with a $600,000.00 unpaid bill by a small business owner that Facebook ran up on his credit card bill. He only had approved $489,000.00 (that no chump change either) here’s the link!

What is also true, is that big business has full time copy writers that know how to write headlines and copy that grads your attention (they do it as their full time job) and did I mention that they also have visual content creators also? (picture from the same sponsored post)

Did you see the amount of likes and comments? Now that is engagement. I’m not sure if you have a complete marketing department, and the budget to do this? Or, the time to create all these daily post to drive traffic to your business. What I do know is that trying to compete with the big boys will only empty your pocketbook.Even if you have been able to get traction with your own “#” (hashtag).

But wait … the daily news just got worst (but when is anything on the news good?) this just in today:

Here’s what you need to know:“Previously, Facebook has focused on interests at face value. For Interest-based targeting, if a user liked a page, a brand or even a public figure such as the irresistible Ryan Gosling, they would be tagged as an avid fan. This strategy is limited by the thinking that if that user liked Ryan Gosling a year or two ago, an advertiser would market to them, even if they now found him to be distasteful, or had fallen horribly out-of-love.”

What’s going on now: “Broad Categories have been phased out. Precise Interests are outdated. Facebook is now paying closer attention to more of your online habits.”

Don’t worry small business owner, because tomorrow, I’m going to give you the answer to what you need to be doing with your marketing. Make sure you subscribe so you’ll get it in your inbox, and I promise to show you how to create traffic for FREE!

Don’t discount, add Value.

The starting point of every sale, started with an entrepreneur that had;

The recognition of a need (problem)or

The conception of an idea (solution).

Your capacity to make money as an entrepreneur is greatly dependent on how much of a problem/problems you can solve or solutions you can offer to customers’ needs.

One way to add value: “Nothing says “I value you” like some face time. Make it a point to schedule in-person customer visits just to check in and see how things are going. This gives us the chance to troubleshoot any potential problems firsthand, and customers love the individual attention.” Says Harry Whitehouse Stanford’s associate professor with over 35 years of experience.

The reward of a great entrepreneur is profit. In other words, the reward of an entrepreneur’s call is to create a value-adding product/service that is profitable.

So next time you’re tempted to add a discount sign over your product or services to make a sale, think first, “what could I do to add more value?” You make be surprised to see you profits rise and your customers desire to have more of your products or services rise too.